Saving Paper by using Word Comments

I am not sure why I didn't know this before, but in an effort to save paper, I am going to ask the writing teacher to use this next year. By using Microsoft Word, the teacher can open up the document and make comments on the page without changing the students work. If the paper needs to be printed, it can be printed without the comments, with the comments, or only the comments. When you are reading the document in word, you can highlight what you want the student to notice, insert a comment and your comment will be on the left side of the page with a line going to where you want the student to notice. I think that this will make it easier for the students to keep track of the comments.

In Open Office, it isn't called a comment, but a note. However, I did think that the notes in Open Office were even clearer to see.If I save a document with notes in Open Office and open it in Microsoft, the notes are still there.  After a student has dealt with a note, they have the option of deleting the note. Hopefully, I will see this being used more in the computer room next year to save some paper. I also think that when something is being collaborated on, this could be used.

Powerpoint Slides - Arrange

The fifth graders are making powerpoints that are a series of postcards that they are creating about the Oregon Trail.
My fifth graders are working on powerpoint and I was trying to think how to arrange the slides in powerpoint. They would put the slides in the wrong order and want to straighten them out. I KNEW that you could do it, but couldn't think about how to do it.

Well, it is quite easy when you know where to look. Almost embarrassingly easy, but I figure if I write it here, I will find it the next time I can't remember where it is.

Go to View and choose the Slide Sorter. This will give you a visual representation to the presentation. You can just move the slides very easily in that. You just have to physically move the slide with the mouse.

In Open Office, you can move the slides when they are on the left side in the normal view and they also have the slide sorter in the exact same place as Powerpoint. So far, I have not found anything really that you can't do in Open Office that you can do in Powerpoint, but I have been hearing that the presentation mode is not as strong in Open Office. Stay tuned to find out what I do discover.

Inserting Excel Worksheet into a Word Document

When you want to insert a chart into a document, you can do this. Take a document that has been written in Word, and insert the chart.

Go to Insert Menu – Choose Object, then the Microsoft Worksheet. You can toggle on the document to switch from a graph or a chart of the numbers. Because it is a worksheet inside of the document, you can double click on it and make any changes to the number or whether it is viewed as a spreadsheet or a graph.

In Open office, it would seem that you first have to have the spreadsheet made to insert. You copy the cells you want and then paste them into the document. You can make changes to any of the numbers in the document. I can't seem to get the graph to show up in the Open Office however that can make changes. I can import it as a picture, but not as a changing piece. This might be something I am missing, but it is the first time that Microsoft Office has been better than Open Office.